


small town christmas blues

by thompsborn



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Christmas Tree Lighting, Death, Hurt/Comfort, Implications of death, Irondad, Sad, Tony Stark Acting as Harley Keener's Parental Figure, car crash, car crash mention, might write a part two but idk yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28083657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thompsborn/pseuds/thompsborn
Summary: Harley wants to say no, but Miss Baker looks at him with hope, like maybe she can be the one to provide some solace, some relief to him pain, with nothing more than an invitation to attend the Christmas tree lighting with her and her eleven year old granddaughter, and Harley, despite everything, has always been a people pleaser, raised to be polite, so he forces a smile and nods his head and says, “Alright, Miss Baker. I’ll go with y’all, if you want me to.”Miss Baker smiles back, sad and sympathetic. “Oh, dear,” she murmurs. “Of course we want you to. Someone’s always gonna want you.”He pulls his hands back, lets her comforting gesture of palm pressed to wrist fall to the counter as he collects his change and ducks his head. “Thanks, Miss Baker,” he murmurs.Before she can do much more than let out a sad puff of a sigh, he’s walking away.
Relationships: Harley Keener & James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Harley Keener & Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark
Comments: 1
Kudos: 55





	small town christmas blues

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted ironhusbands to be so much more prominent for this prompt fill so if anyone is interested i might write a part two that has more ironhusbands being adoptive dads content ?? idk let me know!!

Rose Hill has always been small—that’s most of it’s charm, after all; a population of less than six hundred people, tucked away somewhere in Tennessee, lucky to be printed on maps. Someone could walk from one end of town to the other and back in no more than an hour. Harley would know—he’s done it himself.

Because it’s a small town. Always has been.

But, _Christ,_ it’s never felt smaller.

There’s an odd contrast to it, really. His house feels too big whenever he’s in it, no other noise other than whatever he makes, his footsteps echoing down vacant halls and empty rooms. It used to be full of noise, every second of the day, leaving the radio blaring when no one was home just to make sure there was something good to come home to, filling the space with laughter and music and voices and love.

It’s a shell, now. A shell of a home, the bare bones and no more life, no more soul.

The contrast comes when he steps outside the front door and instantly feels suffocated—by the eyes of his neighbors, so piercing and full of a gut twisting kind of pity, faces he’s known since the day he was born suddenly feeling foreign and unfamiliar as they look at him like he’s something breakable, like he’s made of glass and just moments away from shattering.

He can’t decide what’s worse: the expansive hole that consumes him in his own house, or the rib-bruising claustrophobia that makes his hands shake when he’s out and about.

“You’re too young,” Miss Baker says, when he’s getting some milk from the only grocery store in town. “Too young to be all alone.”

Harley ducks his head, grabs the milk and his change. “It’s fine,” he tells her. “I’m fine.”

And he thinks that, considering the circumstances, he’s actually pretty alright. Of course, it still sucks—it hurts, more than anything he has ever felt before, and the small town loneliness he felt prior to this has only tripled now that he really has nobody, but he’s making it work. He’s scrapping up just enough money to pay the bills. He’s making it work.

December comes, though, and...

And maybe he isn’t as alright as he thought

Christmas lights get strung up around town, like they always do, and when Harley sees them, he gets excited. Starts thinking about that special cinnamon hot chocolate his Mama makes and the ratty orange gloves that Belle wears every year even though she’s starting to outgrow them and they’re god awful ugly, thinks about wandering around with their travel mugs filled with this cocoa, looking at all the lights like they always, always, _always_ do.

And then he remembers—an empty house, bills that he has to pay even though he’s seventeen and shouldn’t be left alone like this, but it’s Rose Hill, where everyone knows everyone, and maybe there’s an agreement ‘round town saying that they’ll keep an eye on the Keener kid themselves—no child services are needed.

Maybe Harley should have noticed by now, the fact that it’s been months and not a single social worker has knocked on his door.

He doesn’t notice much, anymore.

But he notices how much more it seems to ache in his chest as it gets colder, how much it burns his lungs when he breathes.

“Too young,” Miss Baker sighs.

Harley doesn’t even respond this time.

Miss Baker isn’t fooled by his silence, though. She slides his change across the counter and asks him, “Are you goin’ to the tree lightin’?”

“Who’d I go with?” Harley responds.

“Come with my granddaughter and I,” Miss Baker says, reaching over to rest her hand on his wrist, eyes genuine and concerned. It makes him think of when she gave him free candy back when his dad left—a seven year old, buying groceries for the house because his Mama was working a double shift to cover the bills that were suddenly all on her and little Annabelle Keener was only a toddler, being watched by the neighbors until Harley got home and could take care of her himself. The reminder makes something within him that was already dead shrivel up and give a resounding ache that makes the pulse point on his wrists throb. He flexes his fingers to see if it’ll help and almost misses it when Miss Baker goes on to say, “Her parents—you know, Carl and Jenny, over past the middle school?—they’re on a trip, won’t be back ‘til mornin’ on Christmas Eve, so it’ll just be the two of us. Could use the company, and I bet that you could, too, right?”

Harley wants to say no, but Miss Baker looks at him with hope, like maybe she can be the one to provide some solace, some relief to him pain, with nothing more than an invitation to attend the Christmas tree lighting with her and her eleven year old granddaughter, and Harley, despite everything, has always been a people pleaser, raised to be polite, so he forces a smile and nods his head and says, “Alright, Miss Baker. I’ll go with y’all, if you want me to.”

Miss Baker smiles back, sad and sympathetic. “Oh, dear,” she murmurs. “Of course we want you to. Someone’s always gonna want you.”

He pulls his hands back, lets her comforting gesture of palm pressed to wrist fall to the counter as he collects his change and ducks his head. “Thanks, Miss Baker,” he murmurs.

Before she can do much more than let out a sad puff of a sigh, he’s walking away.

The next weekend, Miss Baker knocks on his door, her granddaughter, Maddison, holding her hand and looking up at Harley with a slight frown when he steps onto the porch. He considered ditching them, quite honestly, but he’ll just see Miss Baker again in a few days time when he’s got to restock on some groceries, and explaining himself then sounds a lot more exhausting than just toughing it out now. Maddison seems apprehensive of him at first, but he sees his sister in her blue eyes and cracks a dumb joke that makes her lips twitch up, just slightly, and by the time they reach the church, where the tree lighting occurs, she’s holding onto Harley’s hand, too, and chatting his ear off about her friends at school.

It _hurts,_ more than anything, but she’s a kid. She’s just a kid, and Harley pushes past the pain, the reminder of the girl who he’ll never get to see grow up, and nods along, encourages her whenever she seems wary of rambling on for too long, listens to every word she says.

Miss Baker looks heartbroken, yet fond.

The tree lighting, in Rose Hill, is always an ordeal. It isn’t sacred by any means, but it’s something that the town likes to make a fun event out of, closing down shops for a few hours the day of just to make sure everyone is able to attend. Harley hasn’t missed a lighting since he was born. He doesn’t think any Rose Hill resident whose lived here their whole lives and haven’t moved out yet has.

What this means is that Harley knows the tree lighting routine. He knows the crowd, too.

He knows when there’s an unfamiliar face.

Or, rather, an extremely familiar face, mingled in an environment that it doesn’t belong in. Harley’s too tired to even question it, really, just lets out a sigh and tells Maddison and Miss Baker, “I think I just—I just saw an old friend, from out of town. I’m gonna... I’ll be back.”

Maddison pouts as he walks away, but she’s an eleven year old girl who barely knows him, no matter how small Rose Hill is, and she doesn’t hesitate to start talking with her Grandmother instead. Miss Baker looks after him, frowning, but gets distracted by Maddison’s excited rambles before he’s fully out of sight.

He winds up by the table set up on the cement path leading towards the entrance to the church, pours himself some hot chocolate and turns around, takes a sip while leaning back against the table. Moments later, that familiar face appears by his side, his own cup in hand, leaning back just like Harley is.

For a long moment, it’s quiet. Then:

“I’m sorry, kid.”

Harley tenses, clenches his jaw, then forces himself to relax with a shrug. “S’alright.”

Tony gives him a side glance, lips in a pursed sort of frown, brows drawn together. “It isn’t,” he says, matter-of-fact in his tone.

Oddly, Harley smiles. “It isn’t,” he amends.

“I wanted to reach out sooner,” Tony tells him. Takes a languid sip of his own cocoa, hums happily at the warmth it provides. Smacks his lips together, too, like this is a normal conversation, not something heavy and horrendously agonizing to talk about. “You know me, though—avoiding confrontation like it’s the plague, especially when there’s emotions involved. Took me a while to realize that, whether you want me to reach out or not, maybe you need me to, either way.”

Harley glances at him, looks away quickly, stares down at his shoes. “I’m fine,” he half heartedly assures. “I don’t—I don’t need...”

When Harley trails off, Tony lets out a soft yet haggard sort of sigh. “You do,” he says, tone gentle. “You need _something,_ even if it isn’t me. Christ, Harley, you’re—you’re _seventeen,_ making ends meet and paying the bills _illegally,_ just to barely scrap by. You can’t keep doing this, and you know it. It’s not good for you.”

“Yeah, well.” Harley tips his head back and gulps the rest of his hot chocolate down in one go, barely wincing when it scolds his tongue, before smiling wryly at Tony and saying, “It’s working so far, isn’t it? I’m doing alright.”

Tony looks at him sadly, features vulnerable in a way that the great Tony Stark never shows. “Kid,” he practically whispers, voice more air than it is sound, yet still providing a sucker punch to Harley’s chest and making his forced smile drop. “It wasn’t your fault, alright? And you shouldn’t punish yourself for it.”

Harley clenches his jaw, tosses his empty cup into the garbage, and shoves his hands into his pockets. “I’m gonna go,” he says gruffly, looking anywhere but at Tony. “Miss Baker’ll be wonderin’ where I am, so I—I shouldn’t—”

Before Harley can finish his half assed excuse for departure, Tony pulls him in, his cup having been set on the table before them, and envelopes him in a hug. At first, Harley goes tense, rigid and unsure, but then Tony begins to rub a circle against the center of his back and he melts into it, forehead dropping to Tony’s shoulder and hands coming up to clench childishly at the winter-thick coat that Tony is wearing. His eyes squeeze shut and his breathing stutters and it hurts. God, it hurts.

“Rhodey’s worried,” Tony murmurs to him, as if Harley isn’t starting to practically hyperventilate in his arms, like Harley isn’t shaking like a leaf and holding onto him like an infant. “We both our, but you know Rhodey—more protective than I am, when it comes to family, anyway. He kept poking and prodding at me to get my head out of my ass and fly out here to see you. You haven’t answered his calls or anything, and, even if he hasn’t admitted it yet, he’s gotten attached to you, kid. Started trying to come up with plans for you to move in with us as soon as we heard about what happened. I tried telling him that we shouldn’t make those plans without talking to you first, but he was so sure you’d want to that he didn’t bother waiting to make sure.”

Harley’s lungs constrict around the near silent gasp that he intakes, and he wants to pull back from the hug and get defensive, wants to insist that he doesn’t want to go anywhere, that he doesn’t need anything, but tears are burning the backs of his eyes and—Christ, he’s a _kid._

Belle was a kid, only twelve years old, when the truck lost traction and careened into an oncoming vehicle. Harley hasn’t felt like a kid since David Keener walked out the door, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s only just seventeen and isn’t that a child, too? Isn’t he allowed to want someone to take care of him for a change? Isn’t he allowed to break down?

“Y’mean that?” Harley rasps, barely manages to push the sound through his closing up throat. Tony holds him closer. “Me, stayin’ with you?”

“Of course, bud,” Tony tells him. He chuckles, and it sounds wet, like he’s swallowing back his own tears. “I may be emotionally constipated, but I love you, kid. Rhodey, too. Christ, Rhodey _adores_ you—I think he wanted to adopt you the second he met you, but you were happy here.”

Harley nods, turns his head to tuck himself into Tony’s neck, ducked beneath his jaw. “I was,” he whispers. “I _was._ But I—I’m not, anymore.”

Tony nods. “I know,” he murmurs. “I know, kid.”

“Okay,” Harley rasps. “I wanna—wanna go. With you, and Rhodey. I don’t wanna be alone.”

“Christ, Harley.” Tony holds him impossibly tighter, buries his nose in Harley’s hair and lets out a long and shaky breath. “You’re not alone, alright? Never. Not if I’ve got a say in it.”

-

Harley looks at the Quinjet with trepidation.

He wants this, he knows—staying in Rose Hill, while the place he’ll always think of when he thinks of his Mama, thinks if Annabelle, is only going to cause him more and more pain. But wanting to leave doesn’t make leaving any easier. It doesn’t do anything to ebb away the sense that he’s abandoning his family.

But then Rhodey steps out, just and warm and gentle in the eyes as Tony has been since showing up at the tree lighting, and Harley feels a sense of safety settle over him.

Rhodey has always cared for him— _about_ him. Ever since Tony introduced them back when Harley was fourteen and spending a week during the summer staying at Stark Tower. They aren’t his Mama, aren’t his sister, aren’t a part of the Keener family, no, but Harley knows them. He trusts them, loves them, even.

When Harley drops his bags by his feet and falls into Rhodey’s awaiting embrace, he feels warm.

Oddly enough, he feels _okay._

**Author's Note:**

> i changed my username!! im not softspiderlad anymore!! which is weird!! but now my tumblr and my ao3 match - my username is now thompsborn on both!! and i like it a lot so !!!


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